As troubling as this practical consequence is, more worrisome still is the fundamental anthropology—the philosophy of human nature—implicit in it. Of course, the state’s imposition of a philosophy will be largely hidden by the fact that it is never actually stated and by the pretense that it is merely a neutral arbiter of rights, and most proponents of same-sex marriage would probably deny that they hold a philosophy of human nature other than the freedom to love whom one will and equality before the law. We can concede that people support ‘marriage equality’ for what seem to be compassionate and humane reasons. But we’re talking about the objectivelogic of a position, its presuppositions and its practical implications, not the subjective content of one’s mind or the sincerity of one’s motivations and beliefs. And to declare that there is no difference between conceiving a child through procreation in a marriage and through the technology necessitated by same-sex unions is to say something definitive about what a child and the human being are, even if this goes unrecognized. Indeed it is all the more definitive the more it goes unrecognized.

Underlying the technological conquest of human biology, whether in its gay or feminist form, is a dualism which bi-furcates the person into a meaningless mechanical body made of malleable ‘stuff’ and the affective or technological will that presides over it. The person as an integrated whole falls through the chasm. This is the foundation of the now orthodox distinction between ‘sex’ which is ‘merely biological’ and ‘gender’ which is socially constructed, as well as the increasingly pervasive (and relentlessly promoted) idea that freedom means our self-creation of both. Technological dominance over procreation imposes this bi-furcated anthropology upon parents and children alike, and codifying it implicitly makes this anthropology the law of the land.

More:

Thus what seems at first glance to be the latest step in the forward march of freedom turns out, on closer inspection, to be a decisive moment in the triumph of technology over the human being, though these aren’t really the opposites that they appear to be. When freedom is understood as limitless possibility and is elevated to the highest good, it is inevitable that anything that would define us prior to our choosing—even our own bodies—will eventually be regarded as an obstacle to be overcome. We then become both protagonists and victims, though not all of us in equal measure. The Craig Venters of the world, making their fortunes by imposing their designs on subsequent generations, will be more the former than the latter; while the women farming out their wombs in the Third World and the newly assembled children of many parents and none, who will have no say in what we have made of them, will be more the latter than the former.

Huxley and Lewis saw that the plastic body emptied of its dignity through eugenics had as its necessary counterpart the plastic soul deprived of its human inheritance and emptied of its capacity for truly human thoughts, feeling, and experiences.

This triumph of technology over the human person will not be merely technological. It will be internal as well as external, ‘spiritual’ as well as material. Huxley understood this with great clarity and C.S. Lewis with even greater clarity, though the gulf between them is otherwise infinite. They saw that the plastic body emptied of its dignity through eugenics had as its necessary counterpart the plastic soul deprived of its human inheritance and emptied of its capacity for truly human thoughts, feeling, and experiences. This process too, which is even harder to see than it is to understand, is already well underway.

A culture that accepts such deep violence at the origins of life will have every incentive not to think about the profound questions of human existence that for so long animated Western culture—they cut too close to the heart—and so education, even now scarcely distinguishable from ignorance, will largely consist in learning not to ask them. And people who have come to understand themselves as artifacts will be unable to think deeply about them because there will be no depths to think about. For they will have already reduced reality to an assemblage of superficial ‘facts’ and truth to an arrangement (or re-arrangement) of the facts. And so they will have already reduced thinking to some technique for assembling or manipulating data and things such as sociology, engineering, or journalism, that light minded empiricism which is the predominant form of rationality in our age. (This reduction of reason underlies recent court decisions denying that arguments for the exclusivity of natural marriage meet even the minimum standard of a rational basis.

The phenomenon of the transgendered person is a thoroughly modern one, not in the sense that such conditions did not exist in the past — Cassius Dio relates a horrifying tale of an attempted sex-change operation — but because we in the 21st century have regressed to a very primitive understanding of reality, namely the sympathetic magic described by James George Frazer in The Golden Bough. The obsession with policing language on the theory that language mystically shapes reality is itself ancient — see the Old Testament — and sympathetic magic proceeds along similar lines, using imitation and related techniques as a means of controlling reality. The most famous example of this is the voodoo doll. If an effigy can be made sufficiently like the reality it is intended to represent, then it becomes, for the mystical purposes at hand, a reality in its own right. The infinite malleability of the postmodern idea of “gender,” as opposed to the stubborn concreteness of sex, is precisely the reason the concept was invented. For all of the high-academic theory attached to the question, it is simply a mystical exercise in rearranging words to rearrange reality. Facebook now has a few score options for describing one’s gender or sex, and no doubt they will soon match the number of names for the Almighty in one of the old mystery cults.

Regardless of the question of whether he has had his genitals amputated, Cox is not a woman, but an effigy of a woman. Sex is a biological reality, and it is not subordinate to subjective impressions, no matter how intense those impressions are, how sincerely they are held, or how painful they make facing the biological facts of life. No hormone injection or surgical mutilation is sufficient to change that.

Shorter Williamson: Even if he has no clothes, the Emperor still has a penis.

It seems to me that, as we believe in the incarnation, Christians in particular really need a sophisticated theology of matter and how it relates to spirit/soul/mind. There seem to be four basic positions:

1. Classical – Both the material and the mental/spiritual really exist. Spirit may be able to exist on its own (God, souls), but matter is inextricably bound up with spirit. It is never “just” matter. Matter and spirit in the human person are not the same thing, but there is no absolutely clear boundary between the two.
2. Cartesian – Both the material and the mental/spiritual exist, but they are entirely separate kinds of things which can still be linked up in some inexplicable way in a person.
3. Idealist – There’s really nothing except the mental/spiritual and matter is an illusion.
4. Materialist – There is really nothing except the material, considered as meaningless “stuff.” Often the reality of the mental/spiritual is outright denied.

There are, of course, some variations on these. For example, Plato somewhat anticipates Descartes in separating the material and mental/spiritual, and in denigrating the material as he does so, though he most certainly does not view the cosmos as composed of a bunch of meaningless stuff either. But, in any event, I think the four above are the most basic, most coherent positions.

Notice that 2-4 all implicitly deny any real meaning to matter. For the Idealist, matter doesn’t really exist, while for the Materialist it exists but is inherently meaningless. The Cartesian definitely affirms the existence of both mental life and matter, but again denies the inherent meaning of the latter.

Now other monotheistic faiths may (or may not) be able to better get away with some other position, but I think that anything like 2-4 cause huge problems for the Christian doctrine of the incarnation:

A. The Idealist position makes the incarnation pointless. Matter doesn’t even really exist.

B. The Materialist incarnation simply dumps God into a hunk of meaningless bits. What’s the point in that?

C. The Cartesian affirms that a person is made up of both matter and soul. But again what’s the point of the incarnation if the soul is the really important thing? I suppose one could see the incarnation and the crucifixion as God coming down to understand and identify with the sufferings of the soul, chained as it is to matter. This “feel our pain” view of Christianity has a certain kind of appeal, but it seems to me it makes utter nonsense of the bodily resurrection. Isn’t it better for the soul to be liberated from an attachment to matter? Isn’t that attachment painful at worst and meaningless at best? In addition the Cartesian view conflicts with how the incarnation has traditionally been viewed: the Word became flesh; it wasn’t just chained to flesh.

People have different preferences among all these positions. The Dawkins and Dennett crowd like materialism, the New Agers go in for idealism, lots of people are implicit Cartesians, and most switch between all three in an utterly unprincipled way.

Needless to say, modern sexual ethics can go with 2-4. If the human body is meaningless stuff, or if it doesn’t really exist at all, then who sticks what where doesn’t really matter.

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220 Responses to Sex, Gender, And Unreality

I wasn’t questioning the persuadability of people in general. I was questioning the persuadability of 1) you and 2) the Progressive ideologues with whom you have an axe to grind.

So, to be clear, is there anything Progressive ideologues can say that will sway you in their favor? Is there any argument they can construct, any point they could make, that will convince you to admit they’re right? Conversely, do you really think there’s anything you can say to Progressive ideologues that will sway them in your favor? Any argument that you could make that will convince them to admit you’re right? Will you ever concede a point to them? Will they ever concede a point to you?

If your mind isn’t open to being changed, there’s no point in arguing with you. If the minds of Progressive ideologues aren’t open to being changed, there’s no point in arguing with them, either.

On the other hand, if all you (and they) are really after is a fight, fine. Say so. Own it. Go get it over with, and get it out of your system. Leave the debating to the people who are capable of realizing they could be wrong.

Then why not use surgery or other physical means to achieve other (aberrant) psychological/emotional ends? In short, why can’t the exact same things apply to race as they supposedly do to sex?

I sympathize with your first question, at least in principle, but the glaring example to your second question was Michael Jackson.

Accessibility is the primary difference. Sex reassignment is a grueling exercise over months or years. We’ve long had breast enlargement, “abs of steel” programs, but for me the key commentary on it all is something I read a while ago, so please forgive the lack of attribution: If FDR had campaigned in the media of the following decades, he’d not likely have fared so well being shown to all sitting in a wheelchair.

I submit to you that your suggested comparison is invidious. Sexual identity is first and foremost internally driven, only secondarily (if still importantly) validated externally. The egregious effort and money spent over cosmetic appearance is tantamount to a psychosis in our culture, and is primarily externally driven.

This approach, I submit, is a massive departure from the thought of St. Paul, who argued for Theism, not from the Resurrection of Christ, but from the principle of causality with respect to the created world. In other words, St. Paul appealed to metaphysics, and it is apparently their distrust in metaphysics that prompts some modern apologists not to follow Paul in this regard.

Absolutely.

It is telling that when someone is shown that their metaphysics are incompatible with Christianity, they will often stop arguing for their metaphysics and immediately start attacking the very idea of metaphysics. Any stick is good enough, so long as I can still approve of sodomy. But, as the above essay notes, St. Paul appeals to natural law . . . which is based on a very specific form of metaphysics.

My very first post was a generalization about the nature of (fairly) recent Progressivism. I did not even address you; I was responding with a generalization to a general question posed by another poster.

You are the one that chose to engage me, directly, by saying my post was ‘pure bullpucky’. Some substance.

My initial post on this thread was in response to this question (from someone else): “We can disagree on the answers, but can we at least approach the questions without presuming the other is acting in bad faith?”

My response was that the very nature of the Progressive moment renders this basically impossible (it is just part of its fruit).

You engaged me at that point, saying what I wrote was pure bullpucky. Since then you have called me a troll and said that I was dishonest on every front, compassionately warning your audience of my wickedness.

In addition to being unable to show where my generalizations were wrong (other than saying this is something all power/elite groups do), which is something you still haven’t done, you have absolutely demonstrated why I answered the original question in the way that I did.

I pointed out that your positions face certain challenges, as I continue to call into question the Blessedness of this Progressive Era beyond that of any other, and you labeled me as dishonest on every front. Of course, I point out those challenges which are obvious to anyone with eyes to see (after being called dishonest on every front), you admit to them, and then demand that I need more substance.

So, basically, you have helped confirm my general thesis for why I answered the original question the way that I did. I will quote the original question and the first bit of my response here:

“We can disagree on the answers, but can we at least approach the questions without presuming the other is acting in bad faith?”

The opening of my response:

Unfortunately for you and others (like myself), that is not the way Progressivism works. The nature of Progressivism is to close debate at the earliest feasible opportunity. This is done, mostly, by convincing a large number of people that everyone who did or still does hold the older view is narrow, stupid, and/or evil (bigoted, racist, homophobic, misogynistic, etc.).

Let’s see, who has labeled someone they engaged as narrow/stupid (‘bullpucky’ / ‘troll’) and evil (‘dishonest on every front’)? That would be Franklin Evans.

Who has pointed out challenges at the very core of the Progressive mindset, exemplified by one of the progressives on this board (and, again, I only engaged you and referenced you after you threw out the quite substantive ‘pure bullpucky’ claim)? That would be me.

Have I called you dishonest on every front? Have I called you a troll? No. But thanks for helping to prove – even further – my original thesis. It’s difficult for me to imagine how it could have been demonstrated more spectacularly.

You are assuming I was born with my present beliefs – that I haven’t already been persuaded to stand where I stand today, away from some strand (or strands) of Progressivism over the last 15 or more years.

As a result, as someone who has been persuaded over the years on any number of things (from very small to reasonably large), I’m sure I could be persuaded by a Progressive about any number of other things at some point in the future, either by rational discourse, propaganda, or some other method.

I guess my point is that someone who seems ‘rock solid’ at a given moment, may already have the seeds within them that will push them on a different path over a long time horizon.

St. Paul was as fierce and solid against Christ, right up until the moment he wasn’t. I no longer presume to know when someone is truly closed off, and when they may be about to budge. I don’t even presume to know this about myself.

“If your mind isn’t open to being changed, there’s no point in arguing with you. If the minds of Progressive ideologues aren’t open to being changed, there’s no point in arguing with them, either.”

This is true, in theory. And I agree with you. I just don’t presume to know when it has happened in practice. Thus, I contend (perhaps incorrectly) that the ‘fight’ is worth having, that it may have value 10 years into the future, long after I have even forgotten having the debate or conversation.

When Rod posted this, I went and read Hanby’s piece. It is essentially a sentimental piece, creating a rosy view of a world that never was. Further, Hanby is required to create phantasms of future horrors to justify his ignoring the problems that a lack of same-sex marriage creates. Anyone who wants to argue against same-sex marriage really should present his or her solutions to the problems that same-sex couples face. We can judge them on how realistic their solutions are. (Can’t get health care if the state doesn’t recognize your relationship? Let’s overhaul health care. We saw how popular that was the last time.)

What really chilled me was this line about children:

It is to deny that he is essentially the natural fruit of a love inscribed into his parents’ flesh

Really? This line is the most perfect combination of sentimentality and willful ignorance possible. I would love to live in a world where every child is “the natural fruit of a love inscribed into his parents’ flesh,” and I even have that privilege myself.

There are many readers of this blog who would laud a woman who decided not to abort a child conceived by rape. But would you call such a child “the natural fruit of a love inscribed into his parents’ flesh”?

I’d like to pretend that every act of sex is an act of love, but I’m not that naïve.

Like many other arguments “against” same-sex marriage, this one is really about something else: assisted conception. Same-sex couples are an easy target on this, but if were ban same-sex couples from using assisted reproduction, the fertility clinics would barely notice the drop in business. It’s not all lesbian wanna-be-moms. These techniques were invented for opposite-sex couples where one of the spouses are infertile.

Hanby trades on people’s discomfort with same-sex couples in order to push for his real goal which has nothing to do with same-sex marriage. But you can squick people out more effectively by bringing up the concept of a same-sex couple treating a baby as an artifact, as if it’s the latest fashionable accessory in West Hollywood, instead of bringing up opposite-sex couples who have tried for years and failed to have children.

Judging from Hanby’s piece, you would never think that opposite-sex couples are the major users of assisted reproductive technologies.

Re: This approach, I submit, is a massive departure from the thought of St. Paul, who argued for Theism, not from the Resurrection of Christ, but from the principle of causality with respect to the created world.

Are you reading Pauline Epistles not in my Bible? St Paul did not “argue for theism” at all. He assumed it from the outset (and since he was writing to people who agreed with him there, that is OK– he was not trying to convert atheists). No where in Paul’s writing does he indulge is aery-faery metaphysical sky castle-building (a la Kant, Descartes, Plato, Aristotle etc,). His purposes are direct and pragmatic: he is preaching doctrine to live and believe by. And good grief, Paul absolutely did regard the Resurrection as primary, not a derived doctrine. He himself was convinced not by abstract argument but by actual experience with the resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus. “If Christ is not risen our faith is ion vain”. Enough said.

When I bike to work I do not fret about the reality of matter, whether time can run backward, the telos of my leg muscles, noumina and phenomena and Dinge an sich, Unmoved Movers, morphai, or whatever. I just hop on the bike and ride.
So too when I receive the Eucharist, or contemplate my icons, metaphysics is not on my mind– not should it be. God is Love– not abstraction.

And do not assume I am arguing for sodomy. It may well be I am arguing more generally against the tyranny of the normal, and those who conflate it with the normative and then proof-text Aristotle or some other mere mortal as a defense against the crimes committed thereby.

St. Paul countered atheism with cosmology, that is, metaphysics. And the Church Fathers agree with him.

Of course this in no way necessitates the development of a “system.” I don’t think that anyone is saying that one must have a certain metaphysic to be a Christian. But you can’t just chuck out metaphysics altogether, esp. if you’re a Catholic or an Orthodox. It might be appealing in some ways, but one must avoid getting too much Barth in his Basil.

“I submit to you that your suggested comparison is invidious. Sexual identity is first and foremost internally driven, only secondarily (if still importantly) validated externally. The egregious effort and money spent over cosmetic appearance is tantamount to a psychosis in our culture, and is primarily externally driven.”

That may be true in the current culture, Franklin, but I don’t see how that changes the argument. If at some point a few years down the road a comparable number of blacks were to come to the conclusion that they really wanted to be white for whatever reason (and I mean that ‘whatever’ literally), what’s different in the logic?

How is, “I’m a man physically, but internally I feel like and believe I should be a woman, so I will get surgery and hormone treatments to change my ‘gender’”

any different than

“I’m black physically, but internally I feel like and believe I should be white, so I will get surgery and skin treatments to change my ‘race.’”

And what if someone wanted to change both their gender and their race?

At bottom, how is it any different?

Michael Jackson had surgery, had his skin bleached, etc., etc., but guess what? He was still black.

And lopping some pieces off and taking hormones doesn’t make a man any more a woman than MJ’s treatments made him white.

How exactly does cutting off someone’s penis help their body achieve the kind of things a body with a penis is intended for? It doesn’t.

How exactly does cutting off someone’s tumor help their body achieve the things a body with a tumor is intended for?

I chose my examples very carefully, and for a reason. They’re all things my body does naturally, in the absence of outside interference. My body produces only one color of hair. It identifies certain foreign bodies as invaders, and uses its immune system to attempt to remove them. I’m very nearsighted, my body apparently believing that I only need to see clearly for about a foot in front of me.

Nonetheless, my conscious mind disagrees; I’ve come to believe that I should be able to have any color hair that I want, that I should have 20/20 vision, and that pollen and cat dander should not cause me to sneeze uncontrollably.

My left-wing conscious mind has declared the reality of my physical body to be meaningless when compared to my desires, and so I use technological means to fulfill my desires for my abstract sense of how my body should work.

And I highly doubt you’d find any of that sinful!

How does taking allergy medicine help my body achieve the things a body with allergies is meant to? How does wearing glasses help my body achieve the kinds of things a body with nearsightedness is supposed to?

How, in other words, did you decide that certain naturally occurring features of the body have a purpose, while other equally natural features do not, and may be freely discarded at our whim?

Where did St Paul even address atheism? Everyone he encountered either believed in the God of the Jews, or the gods of the Pagans.
And stating “Christ is risen” is not cosmology. It is a statement (for Paul) of first-person empirical fact.

I am not trying to say that Christian ought not indulge themselves with philosophy, only that they should not mistake the works of the human mind for divine revelation, just as one ought not mistake a church building, however beautiful but made by men’s hands, for the True Kingdom.

And Thursday came awfully close to saying some of the things you state no one was saying. He basically said that Christian Platonism is impossible, a serious error, (thereby quite ludicrously) condemning most of the history of Christian thought.

I’m a trans woman. I’m pretty confident that I know more about being trans than Kevin Williamson. I’m also pretty confident that the AMA, two APAs, and my own doctor know more about being trans than Kevin Williamson. There are a lot of things that are obvious to me (because I’m trans) and to my family and friends (because they know an Actual, Decidedly Boring Trans Person) that are plainly not obvious to other people. I understand this – it’s sad and terrifying that most people get their ideas about me from sitcoms and op-eds like this. But especially if you don’t have any personal experience with the topic, it seems like it would be a good idea to look into science and medicine’s perspectives before penning an authoritative column that anyone passingly familiar with trans people can immediately recognize as paranoiac nonsense.

I encourage you to do some research or reach out to Louisiana Trans Advocates (or EQLA, Forum For Equality Louisiana, Louisiana Progress, or me personally – I’m in Baton Rouge fairly often) for information, if you’re willing.

Rob: My point, not clearly made, is that there is a substantive and measurable difference between the awareness of and pressures from sexual identity that can have no analog in the external pressures for or against cosmetic appearance and its use by others in labeling a person.

I do understand your main objection. It looks glib but is sincerely meant: for this, you have to be there. I have several transgendered friends, I trust their honesty when sharing their thoughts and feelings about their sexual identity. I cannot claim to know, only understand. In that, I’m in the same boat with you.

I respect your position. If, after you’ve acquired as much firsthand “data” as I have, you insist on maintaining that position, my respect will not change.

“There are many readers of this blog who would laud a woman who decided not to abort a child conceived by rape. But would you call such a child “the natural fruit of a love inscribed into his parents’ flesh”

Before addressing this question, I take it to mean that the gentleman is speaking in the general. However,

If for none months that mother protects that child’s life. Then I answer in the affirmative. That is how valuable that human being in existence from conception is.

Further, the potential of for love and to be a person with that potential remains. I think it remains true that children born from such incidents grow up to be healthy happy adults who raise happy children. Even statistically the odds are in that child’s favor.
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“Michael Jackson had surgery, had his skin bleached, etc., etc., but guess what? He was still black.”

I am not sure that this is accurate. I am not up on Mr. Michael Jackson tabloid data, but I think this idea was debunked. He did have a rare skin disease. Hence the use of the glove. He may have attempted to lighten his skin to match the original discoloration.

People in the entertainment business are of course obsessed about appearance and well they should be in many cases it has earned them millions and for some have surgery has cost them millions and not on the operating table. At the very basic level of xx describes the female and xy defines the male. And the statistical variation is so small it helps define the norm.

Surgeries designed to reverse that seem extreme to me and it is only cosmetic as the chromosome pairing remains. But at least there is some recognition that if I am going to behave like a woman it makes some sense to look like one. I don’t think it works for most, but it is not unconstitutional and by and large none of my business. I may chagrin the practice but I do think that every person who becomes a potential suitor should be made aware.